Shabina Lafleur-Gangji and Stephanie Morningstar have launched a crowdcover to cover the cost of scholarships for Black, Indigenous and other racialized students for SEED, SOIL + SPIRT Herbal Medicine School.
You can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/seed-soil-spirit-bipoc-scholarship-fund
About the Course (from crowdfunder)
This is a 6-month, 60 hour course that is intended for Queer, Trans, and racialized folks as well as their Allies. It will take place in Tkaronto (Toronto – In the City Where Trees Stand On Water) from July to December of 2020.
Our goal is to uplift and centre the history, living stories and relationships of plant medicine from Indigenous, Diasporic, and decolonial perspectives. We will focus on topics like:
Ancestors & Plantcestors: The True History of Herbalism
Seeds & Soil: Regenerative Agriculture
Culturally-Appropriate use of Healing Systems: Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Indigenous Healing Systems
Bioregional Plant Medicine
“Weeds” and “Invasive Species”: Ethical medicine picking and land stewardship
Actions & Energetics
Anatomy & Physiology for Herbalists
Basic Botany & Plant Identification
Materia Medica
Growing, Harvesting, and Preparing medicines
Decolonial Herbalism: Spirit, Stars, and Social Justice
We created this program with the goal or providing a space when students could build relationships with Plants and honour ancestral knowledge. This space is essential because racialized people are rarely given the opportunity to learn about Plant medicine in a way that feels safe, let alone healing. However, many of our communities have been systemically impoverished for generations, and so scholarships are necessary in order to make this happen.
We are asking for 4,000$ to cover:
2 – 1,000$ scholarships
4 – 500$ scholarships
This will allow students who would not otherwise be able to participate to join and connect to their ancestral knowledge. All additional funds will go towards covering the materials, booking space and paying for video production costs.
The application can be found here: http://www.skyworldapothecary.com/seed-soil-spirit
About the Facilitators:
Shabina Lafleur-Gangji
Shabina is a mixed Indian, Persian, and French herbalist who has been involved in healing justice work and movements for liberation for the last decade. She works to support people in reclaiming their traditional knowledge through their connection with ancestral plants and has used herbal medicine as a way to fundraise for BIPOC-led movements for freedom. She is a graduate of the Living Earth School of Herbalism and the School of Ayurveda and Panchakarma in Kerala. She has studied alongside herbalists such as Dr. Nadine Ijaz, Janette Cormier and Scott Reid. She is currently in her final year at Humber College’s Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner Program.
Stephanie Morningstar
I live my life in service to liberation in my own simple way- I am a part of a community activated by the desire to live into something different, a world where Indigenous and diasporic voices are centered and our original instructions are the locus from which we engage relationship. I envision a world where our homelands are rematriated and our collective nations are resituated as the original stewards of Turtle Island for the benefit of all our relations, both human and non-human.
I am a student of life, of books, of people as well as non-human beings- my knowledge has emerged as the interconnected relationship of my Haudenosaunee and European ancestry, and resides on a bridge between both of these worlds. My early training, over 17 years ago, found me walking in the woods with fellow herbalists who acted as mentors and guides to a fascinating world of green wisdom. My first didactic teachers were Eurocentric and although the knowledge I gained was useful, I found it lacking in ways I couldn’t name. As I began to learn from Indigenous Knowledge keepers in my home community of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, I realized why- the knowledge of settlers decontextualizes our medicine ways, removes the spirit from our connection to healing and plants, and relegates Indigenous knowledge to the past. My desire is to draw upon the deep, deep well of Indigenous and Diasporic wisdom, the originators of these long lineages of healing knowledge and ways of Being, Doing, and Knowing, by centering BIPOC herbalists and knowledgekeepers. Paired with peer-reviewed research and trusted and safe Western Herbal knowledge, together we can create a healing space built from equity and truth telling meant for all.
Donate!! Here is the link again: https://www.gofundme.com/f/seed-soil-spirit-bipoc-scholarship-fund
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